Every few months, I experience the same recurring issue: the Avast GUI fails to launch, and the same error message is written in a continuous loop to the cef_log.txt file at a rate of nearly 2 MB/s. This results in extremely large log files that continue to grow until the system is rebooted and the log is manually cleared.
The options available via the system tray icon’s context menu continue to work properly — the issue seems to affect only the main GUI.
It seems that this issue may be related to GPU acceleration. However, since the error is written in a loop, it appears to feed back into the problem, preventing the GUI from initializing — the software remains perpetually busy logging the same error instead of attempting any possible recovery routines.
Due to the infrequent nature of the issue, I haven’t been able to isolate the exact cause. However, I suspect it tends to occur after updating the graphics driver. Currently, I am using Nvidia driver version 572.83 on an RTX 4070. I first noticed this issue back in January, likely with the latest driver available at that time, which was one of the first in the branch supporting the RTX 50 series.
I have not found any option in Avast’s settings to manually limit the size of cef_log.txt. From now on, I will disable hardware acceleration for the UI, as I vaguely remember such an option being available.
Could your team please investigate this issue? It is extremely inconvenient and seems to be related not just to the error itself, but to how Avast handles the error logging process as well.
I’m attaching a screenshot of a repeated log snippet from cef_log.txt — the file is currently nearly 200 GB in size, and I don’t have access to any software capable of handling such a massive text file. I believe the logging loop continues all the way to the end of the file. The write rate is higher than what a “CMD TYPE” command can output to the screen.
(All in the same image due new user upload limit)
- Partial log output with file size (via CMD)
- Continuous write rate of cef_log.txt (via Resource Monitor)
- Command-line details of the executable with the highest activity during the issue (via Task Manager)
- Current log file directory (via Windows Explorer)
